Aluminium saucepans, property of Birmingham Corporation Electric Supply Dept

[RogFromBrum]

I'm not sure which forum this best fits into, but since it was a childhood memory I'll try here! My parents, living in the Winson Green area, had an electric cooker in the 1950s and they had aluminium saucepans which were each stamped:

"This pan is the property of the Birmingham Corporation Electric Supply Dept"​

And then above this was stamped the word "NOT", which I take to mean amends the original sentence to:

"This pan is NOT the property of the Birmingham Corporation Electric Supply Dept"​

Anyone else remember these? Were they originally rented from the Electricity Supply Department? And later either sold or given away?

I still have one of them, but it's not used for cooking!

 

[Morturn]

I'm not sure which forum this best fits into, but since it was a childhood memory I'll try here! My parents, living in the Winson Green area, had an electric cooker in the 1950s and they had aluminium saucepans which were each stamped:

"This pan is the property of the Birmingham Corporation Electric Supply Dept"​

And then above this was stamped the word "NOT", which I take to mean amends the original sentence to:

"This pan is NOT the property of the Birmingham Corporation Electric Supply Dept"​

Anyone else remember these? Were they originally rented from the Electricity Supply Department? And later either sold or given away?

I still have one of them, but it's not used for cooking!

I do recall the Council would hire or rent a Black Iron Gas Stoves. It had the Birmingham logo on the oven door. I also have this vague memory of hired electric cookers from the Electricity Department. While I don’t recall hired cookware, it does make sense. I imagine that after a period of hire the property became yours there ha to be a way of certifying items as now not on hire. It may have also been when the scheme ceased all the equipment was transferred to the person hiring it.

 

[RogFromBrum]

Thank you - interesting! I'd not thought about it, but I suppose if my parents were hiring the saucepans, most likely the electric cooker was also on hire.

 

[Radiorails]

I have a 5 pint BCM/Pyramid make aluminium ware saucepan. It is inscribed 'this pan is the property of the Birmingham Corporation Electric supply dept'. It has the number 22474.
The corporations electricity department was nationalized in 1947, so no longer exists.
I suggest that the OP's saucepan was marked 'NOT' by a subsequent owner. I cannot imagine that they were ever rented out.

 

[RogFromBrum]

Mine is also a BCM/Pyramid, but a 7 pinter! I can't find a number on mine, but it may have worn off.

Nothing can be ruled out as to its source, but I've done a bit more digging around and saucepans could be hired from some electricity companies. The Science Museum Group has a saucepan which is described as "
Metal saucepan originally hired from the South Metropolitan Electric Light and Power Co Ltd. C. 1920s to 1930s." (See link below.)

Some saucepans may have come from the canteens, as you suggest, but the "NOT" that mine is stamped with looks official in the sense that it is in an oval and looks like it came from a single stamp. Someone who had acquired it from a canteen would probably have made the word "NOT" out of three individual letters, with no encirclement.


Saucepan - Science Museum Group

 

[Radiorails]

The number on my pan is on the handle where it fitted to the pan. Never having lived in Birmingham - Solihull in fact - I assumed it was a canteen, but Mort has shed more light on this it seems.

 

[Vivienne14]

You certainly could hire electric cookers Mort, and electric kettles, so probably pans too. Viv.
Source: British Newspaper Archive